I am humbled at the invitation to attend Consecration of new CHRIST THE KING CHURCH, at Dakor in Gujarat.

Following letter by Fr. Alex SDB, could enlighten the readers about the efforts gone into the bringing up this Church. SILENT VOICE congratulates Fr. Alex SDB for achieving his Dream Goal.

GREG

Dearest Gregory,

Loving greetings to you.

I am immensely happy to tell you the good news. I am making it an ‘October Special.’ I had this Dream in my last Mission Station – Dakor, Gujarat. ( which is a National Pilgrimage Centre for the HINDUS – Lord Krishana). The Dream was to build a new Church for Christ the King Parish. It was the 29th year of our existence. So I began working on it in 2010. On 14th January 2010, I began writing my letters. Luckily it was a holiday. “Uttran Day” – Kite Festival in Gujarat. From morning to night I wrote nearly 87 letters – Foreign & Indian. In 2011 I ventured to a number of Salesian Parishes in Mumbai and Gujarat. In 2012 my Provincial sent me to US. for Mission Preaching. A sincere ‘Thanks to all’. May God be with you and bless you abundantly. I will never ever forget you my dear God’s faithful.

My Dream was that one day ‘Christ the King’ will rule the hearts of the people of Dakor. Today the Dream is realized. On the 8th of November 2015, the Consecration and Blessing of CHRIST THE KING new church, Dakor. You are most welcome. Your presence will be a precious treasure for me. I run short of words but please do “come and see.” Take care. My prayers are for you without fail. Love and affectionate remembrance.

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Came across this post of March, 2015, recently. How appropriate it is, in current situation, within the Church. Even the Clergy indulge in “Wordliness” as Pope Francis said. Fr. Francis D’britto’s message below, which has been copied from his FaceBook Post, will enlighten the readers about situation, I speak about…….GREG

Pope Francis is warning people against the dangers of “subtle sin” and even said that not all churchgoers are good people.

In a homily delievered at the chapel of Saint Martha residence in the Vatican, Pope Francis shared the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, which is found in the Gospel of Luke.

The rich man boasted of fine clothing and ate lavish meals, while Lazarus was a beggar who lived near his house, struggling with hunger and diseases. Pope Francis explained that the rich man was not really evil, but “the eyes of his soul were certainly tinted so as not to see.”

“Maybe he was a religious man, in his own way,” the Pope said. “Maybe he prayed and a couple times a year he surely went up to the temple to offer sacrifices and he gave big donations to the priests, who in their clerical cowardice would thank him and give him a seat of honour.”

But it did not matter what “good deeds” he made in honour of the church. The rich man still failed to recognise the plight of the poor man who was living so close to his home.

Pope Francis then applied the parable to modern times, warning that a lot of people are religious but their hearts are overshadowed by worldliness, and so they fail to witness the suffering of the people around them.

“With a worldly heart you can go to church, you can pray, you can do many things,” Pope Francis said. “But if your heart is worldly you cannot understand the needs and hardships of others.”

He called this blindness not only a “subtle sin,” but “a sinful state of the soul.”

“There is a curse on the person who trusts in the world and a blessing on the one who trusts in the Lord. The rich man’s soul is a desert and an inhabitable wasteland,” he said, adding that worldly people “are alone with their selfishness.”

But the Pope said that there is still hope. “We have a father who waits for us. In the midst of our worldliness, He calls us his children. We are not orphans,” he said.

The message of Jesus today is very powerful because He addresses Apostles .He does not mince words while talking to erring apostles.

He says ,”the servant who knew his Master’s will and did not prepare himself or do according His will, shall be beaten with many stripes.Luke 12:47.” पदाचा गैरवापर करणाऱ्या देवाच्या माणसाला , गुरूला पुष्कळ फटके मिळतील !!

I take this warning to myself as a priest put in charge of the goods of the Church.My behavior and Church accounts should be transparent.Using the sacred office to shower favours on relatives is called nepotism. Its one of the ancient sins.
It is worst than adultery, which is evil too.The latter happens because of human weakness, the former is done knowing and willing.
My friends. pray for me .

.”In a world filled with challenges to marriage and family life, the Catholic Church is called “to carry out her mission in fidelity, truth and love,” Pope Francis said at the Mass opening the world Synod of Bishops on the family. In his homily, Pope Francis asked people to pray that the synod would show the world “how the experience of marriage and family is rich and humanly fulfilling”

It’s primeval yet very much in vogue seeking a connection with the other by talking about the family. Who’s in your family? What do they do? From strangers meeting on trains and planes to employees and employers checking each other out, this remains a key rite in the passage to fellowship. Social media is also awash with pictures of babies, mummies, daddies…..

We cannot call any society healthy when it does not leave real room for family life. We cannot think that a society has a future when it fails to pass laws capable of protecting families and ensuring their basic needs, especially those of families just starting out.

Society has existed on certain basic principles. The first and most important unit of society has been the family. The family is the basic brick that nations are made of, races are made of, and religious organizations are made of. .

You know what God loves most? To knock on the door of families and to find the families who love each other – families who bring up their children to grow and to move forward. Who create, who develop a society of truth, goodness and beauty. God made man and woman to complement each other, to love and to be loved, and to see their love bear fruit in children.

One can describe the family as “a factory of hope”, each one with divine citizenship, somber reflections – that many families “carry a cross” suffer indignities and separate – with similar wit. Families face many difficulties, Families fight. And sometimes plates fly, and sometimes kids get knocked on the head. And let’s not even talk about mothers-in-law.

There is no perfect family. We have no perfect parents, we are not perfect, do not get married to a perfect person, neither do we have perfect children. We have complaints about each other. We are disappointed by one another. Therefore, there is no healthy marriage or healthy family without the exercise of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is vital to our emotional health and spiritual survival. Without forgiveness the family becomes a theater of conflict and a bastion of grievances. Without forgiveness the family becomes sick.

Forgiveness is the sterilization of the soul, cleansing the mind and the liberation of the heart. Anyone who does not forgive has no peace of soul and communion with God. Pain is a poison that intoxicates and kills. Maintaining a wound of the heart is a self-destructive action. It is an autophagy.

He who does not forgive sickens physically, emotionally and spiritually. That is why the family must be a place of life and not of death; an enclave of cure not of disease; a stage of forgiveness and not of guilt. Forgiveness brings joy where sorrow produced pain; and healing, where pain caused disease.

Stress must be laid on the importance of kind “little gestures” that go a long way in the family. They get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different. They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children and siblings

These are some things that we need to leave unspoilt. Beauty is normally found in things that are odd and imperfect – they are much more interesting. A situation must never arise where the family is unhappy only because of a lack of kind “little gestures” leading forgiveness and family bonding.

Family bonding is very important for a number of reasons. One reason is that today, both parents often work and the kids are involved in many different activities such as sports, clubs and hanging out with friends. The old concepts of what a family should be have been thrown out the window. It used to be that one parent stayed home, the children saw their parents before and after school, and the whole family sat down to dinner EVERY night, talking about their day, talking to each other about what is going on in their lives. Today, you would be lucky if you see each other more than an hour a day and family dinner hardly ever happens at all.

To keep in touch with your family, whether it knows what activities your kids are involved in, parents telling their children about their day, etc., it is important that you as a family spend some quality time together. Sure, you may have busy schedules, but you all can sit down at least once a week to touch base, be together, and let each other know there is love in the family still. All too often, no one talks to others in the family or spends any time together and it seems a bunch of strangers are living together. Do you really want your kids growing up this way, and passing these bad family traits down to their family and kids?

Family time doesn’t have to be a chore, but it does have to be scheduled and you all have to make a commitment to be there every time. If you as a parent tell your friends that you want to spend more time with your family, they better understand, or they aren’t really the friends you thought them to be. While your kids may buck at the idea at first, if they know it is a fun time to spend together, they will be more and more eager to make sure they are there too.

When the ability to acknowledge what is horrifically wrong is lost between or among the family members, then it becomes possible for the family member(s) to justify virtually anything in order to further a larger cause. The idea of a minimum standard of humanity breaks down not because of the universality of evil, but because of a perverse desire to win an argument between or among family members, no matter what the cost. This is the real danger of the word games that are being played between or among family members.

Where does one draw the line? Why does it become possible for a family member to be so repelled by something that they condemn their family unequivocally without qualification or sly justification avoiding the usual “but what about such and such done by the other side in the past”, and refraining from keeping a cunning and calculating silence. Or is it that there is now no such line that we can take for granted, and that everything will necessary become subject to a process of competitive desensitization? These are relevant questions in today’s family. In such circumstances – The church must encourage families and defend faithful love, the sacredness of every human life and “the unity and indissolubility” of marriage.

The family is a place of discernment, where we learn to recognize God’s plan for our lives and to embrace it with trust. It is a place of gratuitousness, of discreet fraternal presence and solidarity, a place where we learn to step out of ourselves and accept others, to forgive and to be forgiven. Every family is always a light, however faint, amid the darkness of this world.

We have a great legacy but one, which is increasingly diminishing, and one fine day we will wake up and see the damage we have done. It is already too late. While there must be enough noise about the problems in the family, we cannot ignore the soul of the family. It’s heritage which chronicles the DNA of a family. To allow that DNA to disappear would be the biggest disservice we can do to the family. The family is not an outdated model, and Catholics should defend it from the sins that call into question and often destroy the traditional family,

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There seems to be a systematic and well orchestrated attempt to impose a majoritarian single point agenda of creating a Hindu Rashtra in India

Open Letter By Admiral.L.Ramdas (Retd)

25 October, 2015Countercurrents.org

Admiral.L.Ramdas (Retd); Chief of the Indian Navy [1990 to 1993]

Honourable President and Honourable Prime Minister,

It is with a heavy heart, that I write this open letter to you at a time when our beloved country and people are facing severe challenges and threats to our shared heritage.

I have served in the Armed Forces of India – joining soon after Independence as a 15 year old, to end up as Chief of the Indian Navy [1990 to 1993]. I have witnessed many transitions in India – from the horrors of partition in 1947 to the very different world of digital connectivity that we see today.

I also write to you as one who was brought up in the Hindu faith. However, the Hinduism I knew and experienced was gentle, inclusive, and filled with extraordinary diversity. My religion taught me values of love and respect for all beings. My brand of Hinduism was not filled with the kind of violence and intolerance represented by the current brand of “Hindutva” that seems to be fanning the flames of division and fear across the country.

Today, as a veteran in my eighties, I am forced to hang my head in shame as I witness a series of incidents and assaults on our fellow citizens, especially minorities and dalits. Our armed forces which I have had the honour to serve for nearly 45 years, have been an exemplar of India’s secular ethos. Be it in ships and submarines, or in planes and battle formations, we do not discriminate on the basis of caste or religion – we train, we fight, we live, we eat and we die together.

So why are we bearing witness to increasing attacks on minorities across the country,ever since the present government came to power in May 2014? It appears that certain communities are being singled out for special attention. Today a Muslim has to prove his or her loyalty, and they are being repeatedly put in a situation where their places of worship are under attack, as indeed their eating habits, and other basic freedoms. The instances of completely unilateral mob behaviour leading to many deaths as well as direct insinuations being made by senior leaders, are too numerous and well known to be repeated. And the atrocities on Dalits continue with impunity.

There seems to be a systematic and well orchestrated attempt to impose a majoritarian single point agenda of creating a Hindu Rashtra in India – led by the RSS and their network of groups, which is disturbing to say the least. This in turn has resulted in a dangerous pattern of mob behaviour including intimidating and lynching people merely on the basis of rumours – in total disregard for the established rule of law. In many cases those responsible for implementing the law, have themselves displayed blatant partisan tendencies and behaviour.

Most shocking of all is the fact there has been no unambiguous condemnation of such actions and behaviour by those at the helm of affairs in the country.

Sadly, time and time again, the response of the government seems to indicate an almost studied, but certainly not benign, indifference. The co-ordinated response of those in government seems to be to downplay the serious and vicious nature of these allegations and attacks – by terming them ‘sad’ and ‘unfortunate’ – whereas there should be outrage and a demonstrated will to ensure that this society will not tolerate such behaviour. That there are MPs, Cabinet ministers and elected Chief Ministers who are in the forefront of these comments and actions, leads one to believe that the ruling party and its satellite organisations are working to a plan and with utter contempt for the rule of law and all norms of decency.

I do not need to point out to the top leadership today, that this is playing with fire in a nation where minorities – especially Muslims and Christians, as also dalits and adivasis, are already feeling discriminated and marginalised. Instead of treating this amazing diversity as our strength, today we are being seen by the international community as increasingly insular, parochial, intolerant, racist and even fascist. The violence visited upon vulnerable sections reinforces the image of India as an imperfect democracy where all forms of dissent are discouraged and human rights trampled upon with impunity.

The Prime Minister and his ministers in the government are sworn in by the President of India, and they take an oath pledging to uphold the Indian Constitution. Their failure to do so, as evidenced in the foregoing, is a serious matter and does not augur well either for national security or national integrity. The Central and State Governments must act swiftly, unequivocally condemn all such incidents, and ensure that justice is done and the guilty are punished. Such action alone will have a salutary deterrent effect on all those, be they fringe or mainstream, who are speaking and acting in many voices that are totally against and inimical to, our traditional ethos and the syncretic culture of our country and its people.

India represents a unique blend of peoples and cultures which have evolved over 5000 years in a constantly changing and dynamic process. This diversity and unique nature of our society and people can probably never be replicated anywhere on this earth – and for this reason alone, the concept of a single religious identity or mono culture represents an insult to this ancient civilisation and heritage.

Honourable Mr President, Honourable Mr Prime Minister, you have both sworn to honour the right of every single citizen to freedom of speech, worship, association as brilliantly articulated in the Indian Constitution. As a former serviceman and a veteran, like you, I too have promised to uphold the same constitution. It is our bounden duty that the elected Government of this nation must honour the rights of every citizen of this land as amply spelled out in the Preamble of the Constitution and further elaborated in the Directive Principles of State policy.

As Supreme Commander and the Chief Executive – this is what you must ensure and implement by all the powers vested in you by the people of India.

If we do not stem the rot now – it might be too late. Indeed we the people of India look to you to take all steps necessary to restore faith in our democracy and in the promise of bringing dignity, fraternity and equality to each of our citizens.

“Christ opened the doors of the Church to all the faithful. Who are we to judge others?”

Despite criticism from conservatives, many Catholics in the city have hailed Cardinal Oswald Gracias’ progressive views

A large number of Catholics in community.the city have backed Cardi nal Oswald Gracias’ appeal for a more open-hearted ap proach towards the LGBT The archdiocese office in Colaba has received several calls from people who have praised the cardinal’s “progressive views“, which they say are in line with Pope Francis’ efforts to create a more welcoming Catholic Church.

“Christ opened the doors of the Church to all the faithful. Who are we to judge others? The Cardinal has welcomed those [homosexuals] as individuals and has not spoken of the sacraments of the Holy Order or Matrimony,“ said Dadar resident Judith Monteiro, who called the office to express her admiration for Cardinal Gracias, the Archbishop of Bombay.

In a recent interview at the Vatican, the cardinal had said that the Church should not be judgemental while dealing with members of the LGBT community. They should not be denied their right to be treated with love and compassion.

“You must make a distinction with an individual who is absolutely part of the Church, who we must care for, and who might have a [homosexual] orientation. You can’t put them in chains, or say we have no responsibility whatsoever,“ the cardinal, who has been at the forefront of the fight to decriminalise homosexuality in India, had said.

The interview has become a talking point among Catholics. Though it has drawn angry reactions from certain sections, many Catholics are backing the cardinal’s stand.

“The cardinal’s views are progressive. The current pope has also talked about humility and inclusiveness,“ said Bandra resident Anil Joseph, adding that many in the community had welcomed Gracias’ views.

Domnic Savio Fernandes, the auxiliary bishop in Mumbai, said that cardinal the Catholic Church had always talked about being more compassionate. “The cardinal has simply emphasised on the stand through the interview,“ he said.

Cardinal Gracias had said in the interview that the use of gentler language when referring to members of the LGBT community would gain acceptance in the Church. “The response to this view is `are you condoning it?’ I personally feel that it would help us to have a more clear, objective view of this matter,“ he said.

Pope Francis on Sunday closed a key bishops’ meeting on family issues at the Vatican, reiterating the call for a more compassionate church. Bishops agreed to a qualified opening towards divorcees who have remarried outside the Church and currently cannot receive communion.

But at the end of the three-week gathering, no statement was made on whether the Church should use more welcoming language towards homosexuals…..